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Tristifer Greyjoy
Born the fourth son and third salt son of Lord Aeron Greyjoy, Tristifer wasn’t exactly reared for great things. Aeron was a cold and distant father who cared little for the boy, and his mother Emma was a bastard girl of House Florent who hated both her life on the Iron Islands and the children that had been forced on her. Instead Tristifer spent the vast majority of his younger years amongst the reavers sons and the poor boys of Pyke, quickly developing a penchant for leadership. Alongside his twin sister Aurana he would lead his little band on escapades through the streets of Lordsport and across the twisting bridges of Pyke. Like all of his other siblings he learned how to fight and practiced with axes as a child, but he never particularly excelled in hand-to-hand combat or dueling. Tristifer was nine when his mother died giving birth to his younger brother Harras in 282AA, much to the sorrow of her older children. While Emma had been a distant and often volatile figure in his life, he regretted her loss all the same, and upon seeing her dead he made a promise to himself to learn more of the Reach and his mother’s family, House Florent. He would get his chance in 285AA at the outbreak of King Cotter’s War. With the help of their older sister Marya, then twelve-year-old Tristifer and Aurana snuck onto a ship and went reaving. His first taste of combat was during one of the many skirmishes in the Shield Isles. While it can’t be said that he fought with any sort of distinction, the young Greyjoy managed to survive the skirmishes in a single piece, if a bit roughed up. This was also Tris’ first real encounter with Greenlanders beyond his father’s salt wives, and he couldn’t help be impressed by the skill, expensive weapons, and armour of the southern knights. As the Greyjoy fleet reaved up the Mander, Tristifer learned what it truly meant to pay the Iron Price, as he watched his countrymen rape, steal, and kill without mercy. It was also along on the banks of the Mander that Tris killed his first man, sinking his axe into a poorly armed peasant boy that couldn’t have been much older than him. Upon their return to Pyke, Andrik quickly learned of Tristifer’s little defiance and was swift to discipline the young man. Tris was forced into a live steel duel against his far superior eldest brother, an experience which was nothing short of terrifying, and proved that the young Greyjoy was far from a gifted warrior. However, after two more years of harsh training under Andrik, he was once again permitted to go reaving once more, joining the crew of Andrik’s Leviathan in 287AA at the age of fourteen. On Tristifer’s request, the first reaving Andrik carried out after adding him to the crew was along the Honeywine, in the lands of House Florent. Here Tris became more intuned with the land of his mother. But that would be only the first of many over the course of the next two years. Tris learned much of what it meant to be an Ironborn in this time, but also a great deal about himself. For while the men he fought with were often eager to take new salt wives after reavings and make use of Greenlander women during raids, Tris never felt any such compulsion. No, he found that instead it was the comely young Greenlander men that oft drew his eye, although he would never tell anyone else that. In 289AA Tristifer left his brother’s ship for that of the Bone Hand, Lord Qorwyn Drumm. This arrangement, organized by Tris himself, served both to get him out of Pyke and thus out of the shadow of his legitimate siblings, as well as strengthen ties with the Drumms. Under Drumm he reaved along the shoreline of Gulltown, where they’re band was confronted by a small force led by Lord Merion Grafton. In the intervening battle it was Tristifer who struck down Lord Grafton, chopping his sword hand off with his axe and taking it for a trophy, one which he keeps to this day. In 290AA the outbreak of the War of the Trident set Ironborn eager to reave across the Greenlands. Tristifer first accompanied Qorwyn to Oldtown where the Drumm Fleet sacked the city. Tris was at the Starry Sept, and assisted Qorwyn in drowning every septon that could be found, but not before wetting his axe with the blood of many a Poor Fellow. After the Starry Sept, the Citedal was next to fall, and Tristifer spent the rest of the sack looting every piece of valuable metal, and rare text he could find intact, including a link made out of Valyrian Steel looted off an ancient maester. When they returned to the Iron Isles, rather than feasting with the Drumms, Tristifer instead returned to his home on Pyke, where a brand new iron galley was waiting for him. Naming the ship Dread, he quickly assembled a group of like-minded young bastards and salt sons to serve as his crew. Two men in particular, Uller Pyke and Rodrik Sparr would serve as jos two lieutenants and most trusted men. Dread would see it’s first action in the Westerlands, where Tris would join the Greyjoy fleet for the sack of Fair Isle. He fought alongside Andrik when the Lord Reaper felled King Tyran Lannister, and again when he slew Lord Reyne and took Red Rain for his own. However, in the wake of the war he found that he was less than content, and rather than going back to the Isles to feast and celebrate, he instead said his goodbyes to Andrik and the rest of his family before setting off to the Stepstones with his twin sister Aurana, now the captain of her own ship, Mercy. In the Stepstones Tris and Aurana became corsairs, signing up with the Gallows King, Vortimer Flowers. He was quick friends with the ruthless bastard, finding a certain camaraderie with the man due to the fact that they both shared the status of lesser sons. Because of this friendship, Tris was even given command of several other captains. Leading these captains in raids and battles in Vortimer’s name taught him a great deal about tactics in strategy, and he soon found that cunning could often prove just as valuable as brute force in battle. For four years Tris and Aurana won glory and vast wealth raiding merchant ships and coastal villages in the three daughters, but Vortimer was an ambitious man and soon he set his sights on a greater prize. When the Gallows King announced his intent to raid the Torrentine he sent out Tristifer and his captains as the first wave of raiders, and the Greyjoy took great joy in raiding villages along the coast, while Vortimer moved to intercept Cedric Dayne on his way back from Oldtown. Tris would often launch his raids at night under the cover of darkness, acting covertly and taking his prey by surprise. Although he wasn’t present for the encounter between Vortimer and Cedric, Tristifer would later remark that he thought it was an awful waste of a good sword, and that Vortimer should’ve just struck off Dayne’s head with Dawn and kept the blade for himself. Not that it mattered anyway, the man surely dead. Surely. Rather than sailing up the Torrentine, Tristifer instead met up with Vortimer and the rest of his ships to form a force roughly comprising half the strength of the Gallows fleet. It was a good thing too, because those ships that raided up the Torrentine would soon fall victim to a very much alive Cedric Dayne. Instead Vortimer laid siege to Starfall itself, which Tristifer and his ships making up part of the blockade sealing the port. However, despite their initial success, Tris was leery of the whole affair, and while Arthur Dayne’s attempts to break the blockade were at first easy enough to repel, the Greyjoy felt that their window of opportunity was closing quickly. He was the first to cut and run when he saw Vortimer’s forces break out into a fevered melee, and although Arthur Dayne’s forces were quick to move in on the blockade once more, Tris was quick enough to escape with a handful of his ships relatively intact. Rather than return to Grey Gallows, which he felt might soon be a target of retaliation from vengeful Daynes, Tris instead took his small fleet and settled on Redwater, setting up his new operation in one of the many abandoned towns on the island. Here he would stay for two years, growing both his fleet and a vast horde of treasure captured from passing ships. He never declared himself a King, but rather the Prince of Scarwood, a first amongst equals rather than a ruler. Here he would stay until 298AA, when a ship captain from Oldtown he captured brought news of King Cotter Goodbrother’s death, and the imminent Kingsmoot. Without a second thought, Tristifer passed on his role of Prince to his second in command, a Norvoshi captain by the name of Aero Swiftsteel, setting sail for the Iron Islands alongside his sister. Timeline: 273AA: Tristifer and his twin sister Aurana are born to Aeron Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, and Emma Flowers, a bastard of House Florent. 282AA: Emma dies giving birth to Tris’ brother Harras. 285AA: With the help of their older sister Marya, Tristifer and Aurana sneak aboard a ship and join King Cotter’s fleet during his reaving of the Reach. After finding out about this, Andrik disciplines Tris harshly. 287AA: Tris joins Andrik’s crew on the Leviathan and they go reaving in Florent lands along the Honeywine. 289AA: Tris leaves Andrik’s crew to join the crew of Lord Qorwyn Drumm. During a reaving in the Vale Tris kills Lord Merion Grafton. 290AA: Tris joins the sack of Oldtown, taking a Valyrian Steel link from a dead maester. 291AA: He leaves Qorwyn’s crew to become the captain of his own ship, an Iron Galley called Dread 292AA: Tris joins the Greyjoy fleet for the reaving in the Westerlands. Afterwards he and Aurana leave for the Stepstones where they join the fleet of King Vortimer Flowers. 296AA: Tris fights in Thorn’s War alongside Vortimer, fleeing after his death to become the Prince of Scarwood. 298AA: Tris leaves Scarwood and returns to the Iron Islands to support his brother in the Kingsmoot. NPC List / Crew: Uller Pyke, First Mate, Archtype: Reaver Malko, Quartermaster, Archtype: Ship Captain Rodrik Sparr, Botswain, Archtype: Scout Category:House Greyjoy Category:Ironborn